Irrigation systems designed to buffer farmers from the effects of a warming planet may be causing them to think their local area is cooler and wetter than it is, says research published June 1 in the journal Global Environmental Change -- perceptions that other studies suggest may slow their efforts to address climate change.

The paper is the first to show the impact of infrastructure on climate perception, said principal investigator Meredith Niles of the University of Vermont

The research compares the climate record since 1980 of two wine producing regions in New Zealand, Marlborough and Hawke's Bay, with resident farmers' perceptions of climate change. Both areas rely heavily on irrigation for growing grapes and other crops.

Although neither region has experienced a significant change in annual rainfall since 1980, 51 percent of farmers in Marlborough thought rainfall had increased over time. In Hawke's Bay 35 percent thought rainfall had risen. Marlborough has about one-and-a-half times more irrigated land than Hawke's Bay. The types of farmers that had irrigation infrastructure were more likely to be among those who perceived increased rainfall.

“This study is the first to suggest that infrastructure like irrigation that can help farmers deal with the climate may actually affect how they perceive climate change,” said Niles. “What may have previously been dry pasture is now lush with green leaves and grapes. It’s not surprising that some farmers believe precipitation has increased.”

A significant percentage of farmers in both regions – 45 percent in Marlborough and 38 percent in Hawke’s Bay -- also thought summers had cooled, even though the historical climate record shows that only winter temperatures had increased in the region.

The belief among farmers that summers were cooler was linked with perceptions of annual rainfall increases. Farmers who believed the climate was changing were more likely to perceive summer and winter temperatures had risen.

Niles’ co-author in the study, Nathan Mueller of Harvard University, suggests that farmer perceptions of cooling might be related to increases in evapotranspiration from irrigation, a phenomenon he has examined in other research. Other studies have shown evapotranspiration can cool air temperatures in heavily irrigated areas by as much as one to two degrees Celsius, with particularly strong effects on the hottest days.

Significant behavioral implications

The findings are especially significant because of their behavioral implications.

Niles and Mueller found that farmers who perceived the temperature had increased were more likely to believe in climate change and be concerned about multiple future climate risks; those who perceived it had stayed the same or decreased were less likely.

These beliefs and concerns, in turn, are linked to potential behavior changes.

In an earlier paper, Niles showed that experience with, and belief in, human-induced climate change, was necessary for farmers to want to reduce their greenhouse gas impacts and adopt adaptive strategies. Absent these experiences and beliefs, farmers indicated they would be less likely to make these behavioral changes.

Other infrastructure?

The impact of irrigation alone on perception of climate change and resulting behavior could be significant. Currently 3.2 billion acres of land globally are irrigated, and irrigation water consumption is expected to increase 11 percent by 2050.

But future research should also examine the impact of other infrastructure like levees and dams, and even air conditioning, on climate perceptions, Niles said.

"This could be a significant factor we're overlooking," she said. "While many of these infrastructure systems are critical to help us adapt and manage the climate, they might also influence how we perceive change. And given that experience with climate change is shown to be a critical factor for behavior change and policy support, this might have profound effects.”

·VDA forwards our nominee to the Dietetic Educators of Practitioners DPG and one person is selected for each type of program within our geographic area, Area 7 ·Faculty with academic or supervised practice appointments or preceptors in CADE accredited and approved dietetics education programs (CP, DI/AP4, DPD, and DT) ·Demonstrated innovative teaching skills and techniques ·Demonstrated mentoring as documented by letters from students

Dr. Farryl joined the Departemnt of Nutrition and Food Sciences in the fall of 2015 as a Lecturer. She believes the goal of teaching is to kindle in students the passion for life-long learning. She hopes to transform students in a way that they become more conscious and aware of the world around them. She wants her students to seek opportunities to broaden and expand their knowledge anywhere, in any circumstance, whether it is taking a moment to become more aware of their food environment, to deepening their understanding the impact of that food environment on healthy eating and community food security. She feels students are best prepared for their career if they are engaged, curious and willing to learn.

She is currently serving on the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation Healthy Food for a Healthy Planet working group, the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group's Food Security Action Plan, as the Vermont Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' State Policy Representative and State Regulatory Specialist, and as the Dietetic Educator for Food For Thought, a non-profit supplemental summer lunch program in her hometown.

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Mon, 18 May 2015 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=20917&category=nfsUVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Dean Tom Vogelmann called it "a land-grant university trifecta" – a woman who earned her Bachelor’s degree here, returned to UVM as a faculty member for 15 highly accomplished years, and then continued to excel at two other state universities.

Speaking before a small crowd at the CALS May 9 annual alumni dinner, he also called her "a leader, a scientist and a teacher." The College had brought Karen Plaut back home from West Lafayette, Indiana to become its 2015 Outstanding Alumna.

Plaut’s amazing career is built on a solid foundation that began in UVM animal science. Her master’s degree in animal nutrition is from Penn. State University, she earned her Ph.D. in animal science from Cornell University. She completed postdoctoral studies at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Then Plaut came back to the University of Vermont to join John Bramley’s animal science department as a rookie assistant professor, and by the time she left, she was chair and a full professor specializing, as so many do here in lactation and mammary gland biology. It was Plaut who expanded UVM animal science to include companion animals.

But in 1998, Plaut also connected to a NASA research project that led to her two-year leave to become lead scientist for NASA's Biological Research Project for the International Space Station where she tested and designed life science habitats – that truly put her in the big league.

Back at UVM, the research of Plaut, John Bramley and David Kerr, who is with us tonight, and colleagues are credited with being responsible for cloning a gene that create the first ever transgenic mastitis-resistant cow. It made world news and magazine covers. Their work was not only a marvel of basic science but important for agriculture, food production and oncology.

Karen Plaut left UVM in 2005 to become chair of animal science at Michigan State University in East Lansing for five years. There she led 50 tenure-track specialists and 200 employees, about 500 students, and 7 campus farms. Among many credits, she was known for hiring 75 percent women and minorities, charting faculty development, managing the bargaining team for the first faculty union, reducing expenses, increasing endowments and gifts and expanding the farms.

In 2010 she became Associate Dean and Director of Purdue University’s Agricultural Research Today she supervises more than 300 faculty members who conduct $80 million of research. She is also affiliated with Purdue’s Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Health and Human Services. She continues to hone her leadership skills in the same areas and conduct her own research.

Over her career her own research has attracted more than $4 million in funding from the likes of the National Science Foundation, USDA and of course NASA. She is also a formidable teacher, advisor and administrative leader.

Vogelmann reflected, "I think we always had extremely high hopes for Karen Plaut, but we feel as John Bramley said recently, 'However, I never dreamed what a star she would become and the accomplishments that would follow.'"

Plaut long ago earned CALS’ top awards including the Vogelmann research and Carrigan teaching awards. She was CALS' first ever New Achiever Award winner in 1996. She now can add to her trophy shelf, the University of Vermont College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Outstanding Alumna Award.

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Mon, 18 May 2015 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=20916&category=nfsJeff DeCelles, of Sea Point, Cape Town, South Africa, is an educator and an entrepreneur. He combines work and play. And he’s ingenious in using something fun and familiar – soccer – as a world ambassador and a metaphor to score victories over HIV.

As a UVM undergrad, DeCelle had traveled extensively in Guatemala and was an avid enthusiast of international community development and soccer. But back then few people had made the connection between the two. As a community development and applied economics (CDAE) major, DeCelle explored the use of soccer in development projects among the sugar plantation workers’ communities, called bateys,in the Dominican Republic. That led to DeCelle co-founding, with three other UVM students, (one whom later became his wife) the nonprofit Batey Libertad Coalition that uses soccer to confront socioeconomic problems facing Haitians. They started with UVM student volunteers and grew the organization to partner with other institutions. Professors Jon Erickson and Pat Erickson were also instrumental of the growth of this project at UVM and continue to teach a travel course during break that explores the use of soccer as an instrument for social change.

While a UVM, DeCelle also studied in rural Honduras, was a teaching assistant for Professor Dan Baker and a research assistant in the Center for Rural Studies, led by Fred Schmidt, who was DeCelle's sponsor at the event. He was a member of the National Honor Society, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in 2003.

That year DeCelle joined a similar international nonprofit organization called Grassroots Soccer. As its program director, he set up offices and developed programs in the Dominican Republic, Africa and India. He rose through the organization over the next four years, and meanwhile, created a partnership with Harvard School of Public Health.

In 2008, Jeff DeCelles received his Masters of Education in International Education Policy from Harvard University, where he was a Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Fellow for social entrepreneurship.

Now he is in charge of developing Grassroots Soccer’s innovative HIV prevention curriculum based on the latest public health research. His significant accomplishments and successes that have grown out of a soccer-driven method of engaging young people in sport and empowering them to achieve important life goals, including health, wellness and financial literacy. He helped expand Grassroots Soccer geographically and with new curriculum in gender equality, financial literacy, skills and income generation. As a result, Grassroots Soccer is a centerpiece of international development worldwide that is recognized with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and many others.

In 2009, he co-founded a spin-off business, so to speak, called Ragball International in Cape Town, South Africa. Here young people are paid a fair wage to produce hand-made soccer balls from recycled materials that are sold locally and through the world’s largest soccer retailer.

Jeff DeCelles makes his career look intuitive, but on close inspection the elements that make up his curriculum and his business are the touchstones of CALS, and especially CDAE, curriculum: leadership and management, environmental sustainability, civic and social responsibility, economics and business development.

“His ability to advance complex development projects and build partnerships across academic, professional and cultural realms is exceptional,” says Professor Dan Baker who was his professor and advisor at UVM. He adds, “I see no sign he is slowing down. Jeff DeCelles is courageous, a critical thinker and ambitious for the advancement of the greater good.”

For these reasons, and many more, Jeff DeCelles received the 2015 UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences New Achiever Award on May 9 at the College's annual alumni and friends dinner at the Davis Center on campus. The award was one of five alumni awards presented by CALS Dean Tom Vogelmann at the event.

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Sun, 17 May 2015 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=20915&category=nfsHer guiding light all four years at the University of Vermont has been her commitment to community service. She made volunteering and community building her priority while earning her Bachelor’s Degree in public communication. Plus helping others is an integral part of her jobs and also occupies much of her free time.

This is how UVM College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Dean Tom Vogelmann introduced Deniz Sehovic to a small crowd gathered in the campus Grand Maple Ballroom for the annual alumni and friends dinner on May 9. He told her story as images of her past flashed on an oversized screen behind them. She was being honored with the College's highest student accolade: the Lawrence K. Forcier Outstanding Senior Award.

Way back, as a high school sophomore, Deniz Sehovic happened to attend a Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Seminar. Organizers noticed right that she has what the seminar board member, Daniel Luttrell, called her ability to, “help others to find their own drive and go on to do more in their communities,” Sehovic was tapped to help lead subsequent youth seminars for other high school sophomores.

Sehovic worked her way up in the organization, and is now the paid director of programming for these annual three-day events that draw more than 100 students from all over the state.

This is what she does. She learns by participating; she helps others and then she becomes a leader.

After graduating from Burlington High School in 2011, Sehovic arrived at UVM as a non-degree student. She took advantage of UVM’s GAP – that is, Guaranteed Admission Program – a chance for motivated students to demonstrate college readiness. She enrolled as a sophomore and declared public communications as her major. “I had my eye on that program when I arrived,” she told a reporter.

"Our College is well known for it’s service learning strategy," Vogelmann said, "that means we infuse our degree programs with courses that integrate instruction with meaningful, hands-on community service, because we believe this makes for better education, better citizens and better communities."

Sehovic took advantage of this.

She chose at least six CALS service-learning courses. In Field Experience Practicum, she turned an internship with Skillet Design and Marketing in Burlington into a job as its social media consultant.

She worked what the College calls CUPS – the office of Community-University Partnerships and Service Learning, where she gained an insider’s view of service learning while she was a volunteer with the King Street Youth Center.

Her senior capstone project with Vermont Community Garden Network in Burlington culminated the very day she stood before the audience gathered for the award, with an event called “Day in the Dirt.” Sehovic had pent the day today building and digging community gardens with schoolchildren. "I'm supposed to check her fingernails," Vogelmann quipped. They were perfect.

On campus she has been a teaching assistant, CALS Rep., Career Peer Mentor and Senior Resident Advisor. Sehovic has been active with Alternative Spring Break, orientation leader recruitment and intramural broom-ball league. In 2013 she received CALS’ Richard M. Holzer Scholarship. In 2014 she was named Senior Resident Advisor of the Year and her group was named UVM Residential Life’s Community of the Year. And became a member of UVM’s Tower Society.

Her Family Received Kindness

Sehovic has said that she was drawn to service learning after a team of Habitat for Humanity volunteers built her own family’s house in Burlington in 1999.

Sehovic’s family had arrived in Vermont from Bosnia in 1997, when she was five years old. They became American citizens in 2003. Her mom and dad and twin sister Zerrin (also a senior who received an award the previous week at CALS Honors Day) and another sister attended the event.

As her Professor Sarah Heiss sums it up, “in four short years Sehovic has had an incredibly positive impact on the University of Vermont.

Sehovic was overly modest when she said, “I was barely admitted into UVM as a GAP student four years ago, and to have come this far and be recognized (is) so wonderful.” In her acceptance speech, a feisty Zehovic joked to UVM President Tom Sullivan that she thought he should re-examine admissions standards. Sullivan later grinned saying that Zehovic is a tribute to how well the GAP program works.

After graduation and a month of backpacking through Europe, Sehovic has a job lined up beginning in July working with social media at a health and lifestyle company in New York City.

Vogelmann had heard that sometimes the twin Sehovics have been known to trade places as a joke. "I hope that’s not the case tonight as I present the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Lawrence K. Forcier Outstanding Senior Award to, I do hope, Deniz Sehovic."

Clearly, the right woman for the award stepped forward.

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Tue, 21 Apr 2015 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=20766&category=nfsScholars, scientists and community servants received recognition. Phi Beta Kappa’s got the handshake. Mortar Board Awardees went to the head of the classroom, and department chairs lauded their best and brightest at UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) two and a half-hourHonors Day ceremony on April 17. Students, families, staff and faculty gathered in Carpenter Auditorium on the University of Vermont campus to applaud 82 undergraduates receiving 40 awards.

Honors Day primarily recognizes students according to their majors, however, the top awards are College- and University-wide accolades.

University Awards

Kylie deGroot and Hailey Grohman were inducted into the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa national honor society.

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Award

Lauren Donnelly received the Alexander Kende Academic Merit Award, which honors the achievements of a second‑semester junior CALS student for academic excellence and interest in medicine or bio‑medical research, in memory of alumnus Alex Kende.

CALS Undergraduate Research Leaders

Eighteen students received certificates for their distinguished undergraduate research that was performed above and beyond pursuing their regular course of study. They are:

Korin Eckstrom, “Evaluating the Use of cDNA Amplicon Next-Generation Sequencing in The Identification of Bovine Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) Class I Molecules: A Comparison of Current Platforms” in the John Barlow laboratory.

Emily Egolf, “Delineating The Effects of Pasture Diversity on The Fatty Acid Composition of Bovine Milk,” in Jana Kraft’s lab.

Mandy Erdei, “Diversity of Staphylococci Isolated From Flies on Dairy Farms in Vermont,” also led by John Barlow.

In addition, 49 new students were inducted into the Green Mountain Chapter of Alpha Zeta, the professional service and honorary agricultural society.

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Tom Vogelmann led the event. Associate Dean Josie Davis presided over the award ceremonies.

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Mon, 16 Mar 2015 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=20479&category=nfsIf you’re a fan of food television, it’s fine to be entertained by the programming, but if you take the rich recipes favored by the Food Network, the Cooking Channel and others into your own kitchen, you’re at risk of putting on pounds, according to a study just published online by the journal Appetite.

“The message is clear,” said Lizzy Pope, assistant professor in UVM's Department of Nutrition and Food Science, the study’s lead author. “Food TV should be a viewing experience only, not a cooking experience.”

The study asked 501 women, aged 20 to 35, where they obtained information about new foods, how frequently they cooked from scratch, and what their heights and weights were.

Women who watched food TV and cooked frequently from scratch had a higher body-mass-index, or BMI – weighing on average 11 more pounds – than those who obtained information from sources like family and friends, magazines and newspapers, or cooking classes. Those who frequently cooked from scratch but didn’t watch food TV also did not have higher BMI’s.

“Viewers vs. doers”

Significantly, women who watched food television but didn’t cook from scratch failed to see their viewing habits translate to a higher BMI.

“Those who are watching just for entertainment are fine,” said Pope, who led the study, titled "Viewers Vs. Doers: The Relationship Between Watching Food Television and BMI," as a post-doctoral researcher at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab.

The reason: the recipes on food TV “are not the healthiest and allow you to feel like it’s OK to prepare and indulge in either less nutritious food or bigger portions,” said study co-author Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.

A study of British food TV found that the recipes used were higher in calories and fat than World Health Organization recommendations.

Social media sources also correlated with higher BMI

The study also found a correlation between higher BMI and women who obtained information from social media.

“It could be that seeing photos of ‘perfect,’ often rich foods your friends post on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram makes it seem like their unhealthy eating patterns are the norm,” Pope said.

Networks: problem or answer?

The study suggests that there is a clear need for self-examination on the part of the food networks, Pope said.

“If we had more food shows that used healthier recipes and showed how they can look good, taste good, be exciting and be social, which is what these shows illustrate, we could have an impact on public health,” she said. “Food show executives and hosts need to realize they are social role models and have a role to play in battling obesity and health care costs. They can be part of the solution or continue contributing to a major problem.”

The findings also suggest that cooking from scratch, which other studies have found correlates with lower BMI, is not the “be-all end-all for healthy eating,” Pope said. “It definitely can result in healthier food than eating out all the time, but only if you're cooking healthy recipes and healthy food.”

Laura Shapiro is a journalist and historian who has published widely on women and cooking in america. She got her start in Boston, writing about feminism for the alternative press, and then spent sixteen years covering the arts, food and women's issues for Newsweek. She is the author of three books, most recently, Julia Child.

Laura's talk, "Stuffed Eggs and Shrimp Wiggle in the FDR White House", will be followed by a reception in the Marble Court of the Fleming Museum. The Lecture is hosted by the Food Systems Graduate Program with the Department of Anthropology, the Department of History and the Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies Program.

In addition to the Burack Lecture, Laura will also participate in a Food Journalism Roundtable on Tuesday, March 31, at 9:00 am, in the Livak Ballroom, Davis Center. This event will also feature food writers, Rowan Jacobsen and Molly Stevens, with a book signing to follow.

For more infromation about these events, please contact Serena Parnau, aparnau@uvm.edu

“Once upon a time,” a food writer recently lamented, “food was about where you came from. Now, for many of us, it is about where we want to go – about who we want to be, how we choose to live.” Where we come from, where we want to go – such questions of identity and aspiration, traditionally the domain of literature and philosophy, have come now to govern discussions about breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

These questions, seemingly straightforward ones about sustenance and labor, are actually rich and complex inquiries about social organization, gender, craft, aesthetics, ethics, and more. For better or worse, the kitchen and the table have become sites of intense scrutiny, and food writing -- in a profusion of historical studies, newspaper and magazine columns and essays, cookbooks, memoirs, and blogs -- has become the hottest genre of cultural journalism, history, and criticism.

To ponder and reflect on these matters, we have assembled a panel of first-rate food writers:

Laura Shapiro, an award-winning New York-based journalist, is the author of the acclaimed cultural histories Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America and Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century.

Molly Stevens is a Vermont-based cookbook author, editor, and cooking teacher whose books All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art and All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking each won a James Beard Foundation Award and International Association of Culinary Professionals Awards.

Rowan Jacobsen, a Vermont-based writer whose work has appeared in Best Food Writing, is the author of Apples of Uncommon Character, American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields, and the James Beard Foundation Award-winning A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur’s Guide to Oyster Eating.

Moderating the panel will be John Gennari, Associate Professor of English and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, who teaches a UVM seminar called “Food, Writing, and American Culture,” and whose recent publications include the essay “The Knife and the Bread, the Brutal and the Sacred: Louis DeSalvo at the Family Table.”

Sponsored by the UVM Food Systems Graduate Program and the Humanities Center]]>http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=19899&category=nfs
Tue, 06 Jan 2015 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=19899&category=nfsDespite New Year’s resolutions to eat better and lose weight, people buy the greatest amount of food after the holidays, says a study led by a University of Vermont researcher.

The study, published by PLOS ONE, finds consumer spending on food increases by 15 percent over the holiday season (Thanksgiving to New Year), with most of the increase attributed to higher levels of junk food.

But shoppers buy the greatest amount of food after New Year -- the equivalent of a nine percent increase in calories above holiday levels, says Prof. Lizzy Pope of the University of Vermont, who led the study as a post-doctoral researcher at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab.

“People start the New Year with good intentions to eat better,” says Pope, who recently joined UVM’s Dept. of Nutrition and Food Science. “They do pick out more healthy items, but they also keep buying higher levels of less-healthy holiday favorites. So their grocery baskets contain more calories than any other time of year we tracked.”

The findings are surprising given the holidays’ reputation for overeating -- and suggest that people need better strategies for shopping under the sway of “res-illusions,” the research team says.

The researchers recommend that consumers use written grocery lists to deter impulsive junk food purchases; substitute as much junk food as possible with fresh produce and nutrient-rich foods; and split grocery baskets visually to ensure nutritious foods represent at least half of your purchases.

Background and methods

The authors of the study, New Year’s Res-Illusions: Food Shopping in the New Year Competes with Healthy Intentions, are Lizzy Pope (University of Vermont), David Just (Cornell University), Brian Wansink (Cornell University), and Drew Hanks (Ohio State University).

“We wanted to see how New Year’s resolutions and the end of the holiday season impact grocery shopping habits -- how much food people buy, and how many calories the foods contain,” says co-author David Just, Cornell University.

More than 200 households in New York State were recruited to participate in the seven-month study of grocery store spending behaviors, from July 2010 to March 2011.

To identify shopping patterns, researchers split the data into three periods: July to Thanksgiving represented participants’ baseline spending (how much the average shopper regularly spends per week on groceries), Thanksgiving to New Year’s was considered the holiday season, and New Year’s to March the post-holiday period.

Foods were categorized as healthy or less healthy based on a nutritional rating system used at participating grocery stores.

“Despite New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier, people tend to hang on to those unhealthy holiday favorites and keep buying them in the New Year,” says co-author Drew Hanks of The Ohio State University, who worked on the study as a post-doctoral researcher at Cornell.

“Based on these findings,” Hanks adds, “we recommend that instead of just adding healthy foods to your cart, people substitute less healthy foods for fresh produce and other nutrient rich foods. The calories will add up slower, and you’ll be more likely to meet your resolutions and shed those unwanted pounds.”

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Tue, 11 Nov 2014 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=19639&category=nfsThe University of Vermont has received a $500,000 three-year grant from the Food and Drug Administration to determine how long E. coli will survive in soil after raw manure and a spray containing benign forms of the bacteria are applied to it.

The results of the research trials, which began last week, will help inform an important revision of a proposed produce safety rule in the Food Safety Modernization Act, the most sweeping reform of food safety regulation in over 70 years.

The 2011 law was prompted by a spate of deadly incidents involving hamburger and spinach contaminated with a rare pathogenic form of the E. coli bacterium, O157:H7. Initially it called for a nine-month waiting period before crops fertilized with raw manure, which can contain E. coli, although very rarely the dangerous type, could be sold.

But during the public comment period that preceded the law’s implementation and in field hearings held across the country, including in Vermont, growers complained that a nine-month wait would all but eliminate their ability to bring produce to market during a growing season.

In response, FDA, working in partnership with the USDA Agriculture Research Service, is conducting trials at five sites around the country to determine the die-off rate of E. coli, and will revise its rules on what constitutes a safe waiting period based on the results.

The UVM trial is the only one taking place in the Northeast and will be used to determine E. coli die off rates in cold climates and in northeastern soils.

Principal investigators on the UVM grant are Deb Neher, chair of the Plant and Soil Science Department, a soil ecologist who studies the microbiology of compost, and Nutrition and Food Sciences professor Cathy Donnelly, an expert in the microbiology of food safety.

“The concerns expressed in Vermont at the field hearings were loud and clear,” said Donnelly. The nine month waiting period “would significantly impact their bottom line. The reaction was basically, ‘Forget it; we’re not able to grow any crops with that kind of constraint.’ We see our role as helping make this a data-driven decision.”

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy and his staff organized the Vermont field hearings.

Neher and Donnelly have set up their test fields on UVM land roughly an acre in size on either side of Spear Street in South Burlington near Wheelock Farm.

The experimental design of the research calls for three treatments: raw manure applied to the top of the soil, raw manure tilled into the soil and a cocktail of three E. coli varieties sprayed into the soil. The E. coli in the spray and the manure, which is analyzed before it is applied, are all benign but serve as effective surrogates for the deadly strain of the bacterium.

Following a set schedule all the test sites adhere to, the researchers will test soil samples frequently in the early weeks of the project and less frequently as time goes on. "The idea is to create a die-off chart to see what the persistence is," Neher said.

Donnelly and Neher will reapply manure, as farmer do, along with the three E. coli cocktail, in the spring and then plant spinach and other leafy greens. They’ll continue to monitor both soil and plants, which can “uptake” E. coli into their stems and leaves. The experiment, which follows the same experimental design at all the FDA sites, will be repeated for two more years so results can take into account variability in weather.

The FDA has said it will wait for five to 10 years to gather and analyze evidence from the test sties before setting new rules on the wait period. At other sites, which have begun their experimental trials, E. coli appear to die off within weeks of the raw manure being applied.

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Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=19606&category=nfsBestselling author Michael Pollan, a vocal advocate for change in America’s food systems, spent the day at UVM Oct. 30, visiting classes and speaking with faculty and students. Pollan's book Cooked was required reading for this year's incoming first-year students as part of the Summer Reads Program.

He culminated his visit to campus with a lively Q&A on the Ira Allen stage, moderated by Amy Trubek, UVM associate professor of nutrition and food science and director of the food systems graduate program.

Read on for some of the highlights from the talk.

Michael Pollan on Cooked and his goal for the book:

“What I was trying to do was to write a book that would excite people about cooking, that would make people understand that it’s this amazing process. It’s alchemy. It’s everyday magic available to all of us,” Pollan said. “You cook bread once, even, and you learn something about bread, and you consume bread in a different way. And — and this is really important, I think — you have a respect for the people who do this work, who we don’t respect enough. And that goes for all my writing about agriculture, too. That if you can see what’s involved in being a great farmer and the understanding of soil and plant and animal that it requires. I’m not expecting people to go out and become a farmer … but to appreciate the work, and to value it and to pay a fair price for it. If I can help these craftspeople to win that sort of respect, that is very gratifying.”

On culture and nature:

“I’ve always been very interested in teasing out this American sense that culture and nature are opposed terms, I’m uncomfortable with that opposition,” he said. “My whole career has been about finding other places to explore our relationship with nature other than where Americans typically go, which is the woods. Nature is on our plates, it’s in our clothes.”

On the cost of food:

“We’ve driven down food prices to an extent that Americans spent less on food than anyone else on the planet — anyone else in the history of the planet,” Pollan said. “This great achievement, which we know comes at quite a cost, nevertheless coincided with the collapse of wages in this society, and it probably cushioned the decline in wages we’ve seen since the 70s. That’s why people could put up with the decline in wages — as they were going down, food was getting cheaper.

“To do what we need to do to make agriculture sustainable, we have to remove some of the externalities, like antibiotics in livestock and hormones, certain chemicals. All of these things will make food more expensive, so no politician’s going to support that. All of which is to say, you can’t fix the food system merely by attending to the food system. It’s all connected, and that’s the key lesson with food: it’s not a discrete subject. So as we make these changes, we’re going to have to increase the minimum wage; we’re going to have to give people enough money to afford to pay the real cost of food.”

On how he approaches the subjects of his books:

“All my work, I think, is really about multiplying perspectives. I mean, I really like to take the first person perspective, then add to it the historical perspective, and then the scientific perspective. They’re all different vocabularies that get at the truth. I don’t privilege any one of them. I don’t think science has the last word. There are many subjects where the poets got there first,” Pollan said. “I really like bringing as many lenses as possible to a subject, and that’s when they become alive to me.”

On UVM:

“You’re so lucky to have a minor in food systems and a graduate program in food systems here,” Pollan said. “This school is pioneering some really important work in this area, and I think some of the leaders of this movement will emerge from this place. It’s one of the reasons it’s a real privilege to speak here.”

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Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=19275&category=nfsThe University of Vermont will launch in January an innovative Food Hub Management Certificate program, the first of its kind in the country.

The program is a unique blend of hands-on, community-based, online and on-campus learning that will prepare students for effective management of food hubs and provide essential tools to advance their career in food systems. UVM’s Food Hub Management Certificate is offered through the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Continuing and Distance Education.

“Our network-based approach to food systems and commitment to local food make Vermont an ideal place to study food hub management. UVM is a leading academic institution in the study of food systems, and Vermont is a national model in the local food movement,” said Cynthia Belliveau, Dean of UVM Continuing and Distance Education. “Many food hubs are up-and-coming businesses with staff who need further training or experience. High quality staffing is one of the greatest challenges food hubs face, and it’s also a key contributing factor to their success. UVM’s Food Hub Management program can significantly help bridge the gap.”

A regional food hub is a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand. Regional food hubs are key mechanisms for creating large, consistent, reliable supplies of mostly locally or regionally produced foods. At the core of food hubs is a business management team that actively coordinates supply chain logistics.

Food hubs represent an emerging business model often characterized by early stage enterprises. Sixty percent of the food hubs in the United States have been in existence for five years or less.

“Successful food hubs present an opportunity for communities to make healthy food sourcing a profitable enterprise for producers, wholesalers, and retailers, while simultaneously improving access to local foods,” said Ann Karlen, founding director of Fair Food Philly and lead faculty member of UVM’s Food Hub program. “UVM’s Food Hub Management Program will provide hands-on training and help build a solid network of skilled practitioners in this expanding field.”

The program is geared toward individuals planning to create or manage a food hub, professionals with food hub experience looking to enhance their career, and food hub staff members interested in leadership development.

The UVM Food Hub program was designed by the pioneers who created the first Food Hubs and a diverse team of nationally-recognized experts, including food hub practitioners, technical assistance providers who specialize in food hub development, and several members of the National Good Food Network.

The program also includes a Vermont Task Force with representation from local food hubs, agencies and organizations, including the Intervale Food Hub, Shelburne Farms, Black River Produce, Mad River Food Hub, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, and the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA).

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Tue, 29 Apr 2014 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=18395&category=nfsStacks of freshly printed certificates, shiny engraved plaques, beribboned boxes, potted plants and handshakes were the take-home symbols for the 42 awards handed out to 86 undergraduates at UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) 2 1/2-hour Honors Day ceremony on April 19. Students, families, staff and faculty gathered in Carpenter Auditorium on the University of Vermont campus – a new venue this year.

CALS’ Dean Tom Vogelmann commended the students and said, “there are many reasons that explain the success of the students who just received our College’s top awards. One of those reasons is the high caliber of CALS teaching – we value, even insist on, teaching that enables our students to do their best as they earn their degrees and after they leave us.”

While this Honors Day primarily recognizes students according to their majors and the administrative departments under which those fall, several students receive larger College- and University-wide accolades.

University Awards

One graduating senior from the College received top university-wide recognition: Sean Hennessy took home the Mortar Board Award for outstanding service, scholarship service, scholarship, and leadership.

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Award

Chelsea Howland received the Alexander Kende Academic Merit Award, which honors the achievements of a second‑semester junior CALS student for academic excellence and interest in medicine or bio‑medical research, in memory of alumnus Alex Kende. With Howland studying and doing research at a pediatric hospital in Ireland, her parents Philip and Catherine Howland of Springfield, Vermont, accepted the award until her return.

Undergraduate Research Leaders

Eleven students received certificates for their distinguished undergraduate research that was performed above and beyond pursuing their regular course of study. They are:

Elizabeth Berman, “The Impact of Changes in Beverage Options on Beverage Choice, Calorie and Added Sugars Consumption on a University Campus,” mentored by Rachel K. Johnson.

Serena DiMattia, “Investigating the Molecular Interaction Between Src Family Kinases and PKA in Ovarian Cancer Cells,” guided by Paula Deming and Stephanie Phelps.

Thomas Hilzinger, who won the Kende Award last year, “Investigation of the Effect of a Wedge Residue on the DNA Scanning Behavior of MutY Homologs on Damaged DNA Using Single Molecule Techniques,” in the Susan Wallace lab.

Megan N. Morris, “What do Children Select from a School Salad Bar? A Descriptive Study Using Digital Imaging to Assess Children’s Food Selections,” under the direction of Rachel K. Johnson and Bethany Yon.

And Brittany Spezzano took the James E. Ludlow Endowed Scholarship all by herself.

If that’s not enough, the trio: Keith, Noel and Spezzano were recognized as teaching assistants along with John E. Davis.

One staff and two faculty members received annual awards during the students’ ceremony. Marcia Purvis received the Outstanding Staff Award, David Conner received the North American Colleges and Teachers Of Agriculture Merit Award and Laura Hill Bermingham received the Joseph E. Carrigan Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Related links to be posted soon.

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Tue, 11 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17772&category=nfsStacked 15 high, 1,500 culture plates line the bench of John Barlow’s University of Vermont lab. This is the collection of just one day at one Vermont farmstead cheesemaker’s farm.

Barlow’s large-scale entire-farm sampling hopes to come up with some novel pathogen detection technology that may be particularly useful to small-scale, on-farm cheesemakers.

His research on various forms of Staphylococcus will fill in the gaps in understanding which are of concern to food safety, which are beneficial in the culturing of cheese and which may affect human health.

Building on UVM listeria expert Catherine Donnelly’s research on how the safety of raw-milk cheeses informs national policy (reported in our 2011 Annual Report), Barlow’s work is year two of a three-year $300,000 transdisciplinary grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

“Cathy Donnelly and I are combining efforts. Because of my interest in Staph aureus epidemiology in cows and humans, and their prior findings, I anticipate we will find great information that will help on-farm cheesemakers,” says Barlow.

ON-FARM DETECTIVE WORK

On each of up to five Vermont farms that make artisan cheeses, Barlow and his team take milk samples from the mammary glands of all the cows in the herd, swabs of 15 different skin sites from six of the cows, and 15 different environmental samples – from, say, walls and stanchions.

“This results in running about 1,500 culture plates per farm,” says Barlow of the project whose goal is to collect from five artisan cheese producing farms. “From this we typically select about 300 Staphylococcus species bacterial isolates for identification and molecular typing.”

Back in the Barlow lab in Terrill Hall on campus, Robert Mugabi, a second-year Ph.D. student in animal science who also has a veterinary degree, examines these for potential virulence characteristics such as the ability to form biofilms and antibiotic resistance genes. In addition three undergraduate students are working on the project during the spring 2014 semester.

Mugabi hopes to have the first draft in May of his thesis “Staphylococcus diversity and epidemiology on dairy farms that make farmstead cheese.”

“We are doing a comprehensive survey to look for sources of Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus species,” Barlow explains. “Staph aureus is a food safety pathogen of concern, but other Staphylococcus species appear to be important for the cheesemaking process and may play a beneficial role as important normal bacterial flora on the cow skin.”

To further complicate matters, some Staphylococci carry antibiotic resistant genes that could affect human health. “These may act as a reservoir for antibiotic resistance on dairy farms,” says Barlow.

While it is too early to make conclusions, by using molecular typing techniques Barlow and colleagues are making progress in understanding the source of the sporadic new Staph aureus infections in these herds which generally have a low prevalence of udder infections caused by this pathogen.

“Molecular typing has revealed some novel strains,” Mugabi says. “These organisms are pretty fascinating,” he adds. "What is interesting so far is when I discovered some new strains, however, there is still a lot to discover that could be important in answering some critical questions in animal health, food safety and public health, given that there is the potential for zoonoses” (that is, infectious diseases transmittable between species).

Barlow continues to collaborate with Donnelly, and UVM researchers in community development and applied economics, David Conner and Sarah Heiss, are also making major contributions to the social science aspects of the project. “We are proud of the transdisciplinary approach to this project,” says Barlow. He and Donnelly are particularly excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Conner and Heiss as they work to understand how the public views artisan cheese farms and raw milk, and how social networks may influence perceptions of food safety.

“In the big picture, we are excited to help artisan cheese producers improve animal health, milk quality and food safety,” Barlow says, “and also to help these producers understand how consumers perceive these attributes for Vermont farms and how this affects their perception of food safety risk and ultimately their purchasing decisions.”

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Wed, 05 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17732&category=nfsForty-eight students file into the ground-floor classroom of UVM’s Morrill Hall for their last day of “Applied Research Methods.”
Good things might come to those who wait;Not for those who wait too late;We gotta go for all we know;

Oldies tunes such as this waft through the laptop computer while Assistant Professor David Conner writes the agenda for the day and for exam week on the chalkboard along with the words “Real Food Challenge.”

This class brings Conner’s research full circle, for applied research is at the core of what he does. And his work with farmers, distributors and buyers to promote the use of fresh, local in-season food is, indeed, very much a real food challenge.

When Conner, who earned his master’s degree in the very department in which he now teaches, returned to UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 2010, he brought research with him from Michigan State University on his specialty. He quantifies the benefits and obstacles farmers and large institutions – such as hospitals schools and senior residences – face when they deal directly with each other. The complexity of providing fresh, local food on this scale is, well, akin to farmers markets on steroids.

Direct Farm-to-Institution (FTI) food systems, it turns out, have many possible benefits, among them: “the first is the food system and education opportunities,” says Conner. Also, when local food is connected with real farmers’ faces “research shows that it makes it cool and something people are willing to try.” Finally, “when we create markets for farmers, it keeps farm and farmland open. And the relationships formed between farms and institutions and supply chains enhances the social community.”

Conner’s findings there were a springboard for further grants and study here in Vermont.

“I brought some Hatch (federal grant) funds with me, and I feel like I really leveraged them well. The point of a Hatch grant is to get yourself going; I’ve done that,” Conner says. “I’ve forged relationships and ongoing collaboration that is just getting stronger. I’m working with Farm-to-Institution (FTI) New England (a regional umbrella group), Vermont Feed, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont and Fletcher Allen Health Care. And I’ve brought in graduate students.”

For example, Noelle Sevoian ‘G13, in her thesis, described the supply chain of Vermont’s mid-sized produce farmers. Her interviews of 19 farmers, distributors and buyers revealed that they were highly motivated by values such as supporting local farms and local economy and a desire to provide healthy foods and instill good eating habits. Being able to provide locally grown foods is a strategic advantage for both distributors and institutions. Institutions value local food for its high quality, educational value and the community support it fosters. However, the difference between the prices that farmers need and the food budget of institutions – especially schools – remains a barrier.

Sevoian’s research along with her degrees in community development and applied economics and civil and environmental engineering led to a plum job with Vermont’s Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets’ Working Lands Initiative as an agricultural development coordinator.

JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED

Florence Becot G’13 CDAE is a research specialist at UVM Center for Rural Studies and also mentored by Conner.

“Florence and I are looking at the impact of Fletcher Allen’s buying of locally grown food. That’s a tremendous success story,” he says of the regional hospital located in Burlington.

Fletcher Allen calls itself Vermont’s largest restaurant, because it served more than two million meals last year. The hospital aims to have the most sustainable hospital food service in the nation, believing that nutrition and food systems are linked not only to the health of the patients but also the health of the community. Fletcher Allen partners with more than 70 farmers and producers, and over half of the food it serves comes from local or sustainable resources, says the hospital’s website.

“Our goal is to build on our strong partnerships with local farms, in hopes that our commitment to purchasing local food not only allows us to improve the health of our patients and customer, but helps keep our farms healthy also,” says Fletcher Allen’s Nutrition Services Director Diane Imrie.

“Given that we spend over $1.5 million annually on local food, we assume that we play a part in farm viability in Vermont, but we are interested in exploring what economic impact we have on the Vermont farm community so that we can share that information with other health care institutions,” says Imrie.

That’s where Becot and Conner’s research comes in.

Imrie hopes their research results will help her quantify the economic impact Fletcher Allen's direct food purchasing practices have in Vermont, so others can easily see it.

“We believe that there may be more than just the direct economic impact – some sort of multiplier,” she says. “Other hospitals in Vermont are committed to reaching the Farm-to-Plate goals and so will benefit from an example locally.”

Becot presented her work in progress to hospital food directors at a retreat in Killington the end of January.

HELPING FARMERS DO WHAT THEY DO BEST

Conner doesn’t only work with farmers and buyers. “I work with all members of the supply chain including distributors – for a food system to work it has to work all along the line,” he says. Conner cites a Vermont distributor, Black River Produce, as an example of best practices, “because they long ago made local foods as the backbone of their business. They bring the efficiency and the scale that the institutions need and the farmers couldn’t manage,” he says. “The middle man provides aggregation and distribution that farmers cannot. Otherwise it takes the farmers away from what they do well, which is to grow food. They get to sell more of the food and spend their time doing what they do best, which is being on the farm.”

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Fri, 24 Jan 2014 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17647&category=nfsThe University of Vermont seeks applicants for an Assistant or Associate Professor in Food Systems, a new tenure track faculty position that will contribute to the University’s faculty leadership in food systems scholarship, teaching, and outreach. Applicants should demonstrate a record of food systems scholarship and expertise, a strong understanding and experience with a systems-approach to food and sustainability issues, and experience working with a variety of research methods.

Position responsibilities include food systems scholarship, instruction, and outreach. Specific expectations regarding requirements for funded research, outreach, and instruction will be informed by the appropriate departmental home to be determined based on the specialization of the successful candidate. Candidates with a PhD (or equivalent received by start date) in the natural sciences, social sciences, health sciences or humanities who are interested in food systems and transdisciplinary approaches to creating and sharing knowledge are encouraged to apply. A strong commitment to meet the Land Grant mission of extending knowledge and research to the people of the State, and thereby contribute to the sustainable and long-term social and economic development of communities within and beyond the state, is required.

The University of Vermont is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through their research, teaching, and outreach. Applicants must describe in their cover letter how they will further this goal. The University of Vermont is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Applications from women and people from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds are encouraged.

Vermont is a small, rural state that is a leader in the sustainable and local foods movement. The UVM Food Systems Initiative is a community of university professionals, researchers, students, and local partners who generate, teach, and apply new knowledge while contributing to the present and future viability and scalability of food systems. The Food Systems Initiative is one of three Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives at the University of Vermont.

Applicants should apply at the UVM jobs website (position #0041117). Review of applications will begin on February 28, 2014, and will continue until the position is filled. For further information, contact the Search Committee Chair, Dr. Douglas O. Lantagne, Director, UVM Food Systems Initiative, at doug.lantagne@uvm.edu. Phone: 802-656-8679.

Anticipated start date is within the 2014-2015 academic year, subject to negotiation.

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Fri, 24 Jan 2014 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17646&category=nfsThe University of Vermont is one of four new sponsors supporting the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development(the Food Systems Journal), along with three other leading North American university programs focused on food systems.

The Food Systems Journal is published by the Food Systems Development Project, a program of the Center for Transformative Action, a nonprofit organization affiliated with Cornell University. It publishes four issues a year and is online only.

“We are pushing the boundaries of what it is to be a journal,” says editor-in-chief Duncan Hilchey. “We take great pride in contributing to the nascent literature on food systems and publishing the very practical work of the growing number of researchers and writers in the field. But we want to take this to an entirely new level, and this will begin to happen now that we have the right partners in place to do it.”

The Food Systems Journal was founded in 2010 to fill the gap in the applied research literature on farming and food systems-based community development, such as regional food value chains, urban food systems, farmland protection and food sovereignty. The journal focuses on public policy, research, and practice in food systems work and emphasizes “accessible scholarship” that maximizes its usefulness in the transdisciplinary field of food systems. Authors include scholars across many academic fields, as well as food systems development practitioners such as educators, activists, and nonprofit and public agency staff. It is currently licensed by academic and institutional libraries around the world and is available free to libraries in less-developed countries.

UVM Provost David Rosowsky says the sponsorship demonstrates UVM’s continuing commitment to food systems scholarship at UVM. “This is a valuable opportunity for UVM to collaborate with other prestigious institutions that have taken leadership in food systems scholarship. Our participation in this collaboration will further support the academic quality of food systems research, teaching and outreach at UVM.”

The four financial sponsors join the Center for Transformative Action (which provides administrative support) in helping the Food Systems Journal not only expand its global reach, but also expand its impact. The journal nurtures early-career authors, provides editorial assistance to non-native English authors, and, seeking to be a meaningful source of change in food systems development, recently published more than 20 open-access commentaries from around the world on food systems research priorities for the next five years. With the support of its sponsors, the journal expects to not only expand its current distribution, but also launch new value-added activities such as producing policy and practice briefs (two-page summaries of published papers that are immediately useful in the field). Also on the drawing board is a “Senior Corps of Researchers and Educators” to leverage the talents of retired faculty and researchers in working with select limited-resource organizations in conducting program evaluations and publishing the results in the Food Systems Journal.

Doug Lantagne, director of UVM's Food Systems Initiative, sees UVM’s support of the journal as an integral piece of the university's food systems leadership. “UVM values addressing needed changes in our food systems in an integrated and collaborative manner. As a supporter of high quality academic scholarship we demonstrate our institutional land grant commitment to transdisciplinary research, teaching and outreach.”

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Mon, 06 Jan 2014 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17520&category=nfsWhen Matt Myers began coordinating the Food Systems Internship Program for the fall 2013 semester, he was excited to be able to place 8 students with organizations and businesses in the Vermont food system. As the program enters its second semester, he’s seen an increasing level of interest from both students and host organizations. A total of 26 intern positions are currently accepting applications for the spring 2014 semester. “I am getting calls and emails nearly every day now from new potential host sites offering internships, or students seeking internships. The word is definitely getting out there!”

With Vermont’s reputation for sustainable agriculture and local food, it’s not surprising that many UVM students studying food systems are finding these opportunities for real-life learning perfectly suited to their academic interests. But the positions aren’t just for “foodies.” Many of the internships provide an opportunity for students to utilize skills that are transferable to other sectors, such as communications, event management, 3D computer modeling, social marketing, policy advocacy, and sales. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the internships, Myers is seeing students from across the university apply for these positions. So far, he has interacted with students from 21 different majors, ranging from Environmental Studies to Engineering.

Liz Berman, a senior Nutrition major at UVM, interned with the Vermont Community Garden Network (VCGN) last summer. “During my summer internship I was able to create and teach a new program of gardening and cooking classes for the Visiting Nurses Association's Family Room Garden and help out at the Teaching Garden program. The knowledge that I gained from my time with the VCGN was absolutely invaluable and I would recommend it to others in a heartbeat!”

Berman’s intern position was one of many the Vermont Community Garden Network offers throughout the year, ranging from hands-on garden education in the Community Teaching Garden to website and social media work to statewide network development. “We have been impressed by the skill and professionalism of UVM interns and we appreciate their enthusiasm and fresh ideas,” says Jess Hyman, executive director of VCGN. “Our interns get direct work experience and play an important role in supporting the state’s network of community and school gardens, teaching people how to grow their own food, and reducing hunger.”

A few of the internships being offered this spring include:

Sales intern at Green Mountain Mustard

Communications and Events Intern at the Vermont Community Garden Network

Community Greenhouse Best Practices Intern at New Farms for New Americans

Mechanical Design Intern at UVM Extension

Social Marketing and Policy Intern at NOFA Vermont

Communications and Event Planning Intern for the UVM Food Systems Summit in June

Are you a student considering an internship in the food systems field? Are you a local food or agriculture business or organization interested in hosting an intern? Contact Matt Myersto get started.

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Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17353&category=nfsWe all can’t help but wonder what’s really in the refrigerators, pantries and lunchboxes of people who teach nutrition for a living. Do they practice what they preach when they’re not in the front of the class?

So when I was invited to talk to Vermont’s team of Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program educators at their fall meeting in Berlin, I was excited to introduce myself to the seven women who serve the whole state with nutrition programs and learn more about this venerable 45-year-old federal program operated by the University of Vermont Extension. I wanted to hear how they reach Vermont’s eligible adults and children of low-income families and help them choose low-cost nutritious food, manage food budgets, become more self-sufficient and connect to other valuable service organizations. Learn more about the Expanded Food and Education Nutrition Program (EFNEP) at http://www.uvm.edu/extension/food/efnep. EFNEP’s headquarters are in UVM’s nutrition and food sciences department. The unexpected bonus was that when I arrived, they were eating their bag lunches. I knew immediately that my very first lesson was in the bag, so to speak.

Seven busy working women – nine actually, because the program coordinator and assistant were also on-hand – had made quick, easy, healthy lunches that were modest in portion size and affordability. Their lunch sacks revealed a nutritional balance of foods. I hope they’ll forgive me if their first impression of me was of my looking over their shoulders, snapping photos and asking for chicken soup recipes. But so many good ideas converged in this one spot. Indeed, these women walk the talk, yet eat the treat.

“EFNEP educators do tend to routinely model good nutritional behavior without even thinking about it,” says Amy Davidson, who coordinates the program’s eight employees in as many offices that cover the state. “After all, every day they offer free programs, classes and individual visits tailored to qualified adults, youth and children on a wide range of food and nutrition topics, so they have delicious, inexpensive, simple, healthy menus and recipes at their fingertips. And when they get together conversation tends toward sharing ideas.”

What’s in the Bag?

Davidson is right. They weighed on who does and doesn’t like kale chips and how to make them crisp and not too salty. The asked each other who still eats canned asparagus nowadays. They relaxed while eating, then got back to business.

Like all of us, for some people on demanding days the best choice for a packed lunch is from the supermarket salad bar, last night’s take-out or homemade pasta or even a simple grab-and-go: yogurt, granola bar, in-season local apple and milk.

Here’s what else I noticed.

• Most people included side dishes of in-season fruits and vegetables – usually about a cup – freshly sliced carrots, sweet peppers, apple, raspberries, banana, celery and the like.

• Several got a dose of calcium and that feeling of fullness that lasts from milk, yogurt, cheese or cottage cheese.

• Whether it’s a salad, sandwich or leftovers, vegetables played the starring role in the main item – always more vegetables than any other ingredient.

• Chocolate! That’s right, a small serving of dark chocolate was the sweet of choice for at least three of the women.

Susan Edwards, the EFNEP educator working out of UVM Extension’s St. Albans office built a tall sandwich of cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and guacamole on whole wheat bread. Likewise, EFNEP program assistant Wendy Hull’s vegetable and cheese sandwich was nested into a whole-wheat wrap cleverly pinned with what is usually a cob corn holder.

Sometimes nothing hits the spot like hot soup. Louise Brunelle, a 14-year EFNEP veteran who works from UVM Extension’s Burlington office has made chicken soup so often that she doesn’t use a recipe. This time, she says, “I used the chicken frame instead of also low-cost chicken necks and backs” to make a rich broth. She added an onion, carrots, celery, low-sodium bouillon and egg noodles. Yogurt and an apple polished off her lunch.

Frances Fleming employed her homemade chicken soup to combat a cold. She says she opts for “dark meat like legs and thighs, because they’re juicer and cheaper.” Her recipe also calls for an onion and carrots “and parsnip if I’m in the mood.” She adds rice and brings out the flavor with whole peppercorns, a bay leaf and parsley. Pretzels and a hot cup of tea completed her lunch, plus a little dark chocolate. Fleming serves EFNEP clients in Washington County from the Berlin office.

Here’s a hearty chicken soup recipe that combines the elements of both of their suggestions.

Easy, Affordable, Homemade Chicken Soup

Although it’s delicious minutes after making it, the secret to the heartwarming flavor of chicken soup on a chilly day is to make it a day ahead to let the flavors of fresh vegetables develop. Refrigerate, skim off the fat and reheat. Some folks swear it’s a cold remedy. Others say it’s an act of kindness that makes the homemade soup “good for what ails you.”

Place the chicken in a large pot. Cut 3 of the carrots and 2 of the celery stalks in half cross-wise. Cut the onion in four pieces, reserving one quarter. Add the cut vegetables to the pot with bay leaf and ground pepper. Cover with cold water (about 8 cups).

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, skimming any foam that rises to the top, until the chicken is cooked through, about 30 minutes.

With a slotted spoon remove the chicken to a bowl to cool, and discard the cooked vegetables. To the broth, add the remaining cut carrots, celery and onions and simmer until firm tender, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove the skin and bones from the cooled chicken and discard it. Shred the meat.

Add the noodles to the soup and cook according to package directions, about another 6-9 minutes, until tender. Add the chicken back to the soup, and the parsley, if using.

Cheryl Dorschner writes for the University of Vermont about food, nutrition and food systems – from garden to plate and test tube to supermarket.

To find out if you’re eligible for Vermont’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program programs, contact an EFNEP educator (http://go.uvm.edu/at0fp) near you or e-mail efnep@uvm.edu.

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Wed, 13 Nov 2013 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17252&category=nfsMaybe it’s the size and scale of Vermont or its agricultural heritage, but there’s something about the Green Mountains that entices citizens and students to answer the call of the Peace Corps. Professor Emeritus Frank Bryan might say Town Meeting culture and the practice of hashing out a community’s needs face to face plays a part. Whatever the reason, year after year, Vermont and UVM rank among the highest producers of Peace Corps volunteers. In the Corps’ 2013 ranking, Vermont was second among all states for residents who served, and UVM was fifth among like-sized colleges and universities. Since the Peace Corps’ inception in 1961, 210,000 Americans have served around the globe. Counted among the volunteers are 819 UVM alumni. Read on for a few of their stories—from those who served in the Peace Corps’ early years to those abroad today.

Micronesia, 1968

When the typhoon hit, the storm’s 220 mile-per-hour winds tore the thatched roof from Dwight Ovitt’s home by the beach. He had lived in Micronesia just four months as a volunteer in the Peace Corps when Ovitt ’67 found himself unsheltered in the storm, gripping the battered dwelling as the tidal surge carried him, the house, and two students out to sea. When the storm’s eye brought relative calm, the three made the swim back from the reef, where they had landed. At shore, they walked into the only structure still standing, the village’s church.

“Birak! Birak!” Those in the church who had watched the house float away had only one explanation for the three who returned. “Ghosts!”

Remarkably, the typhoon and the near-death experience didn’t cut Ovitt’s Peace Corps service short, but it did change the nature of it. When he arrived in Micronesia in the fall of 1967, freshly graduated with a degree in plant and soil science from UVM, the Vermonter, who’d grown up on a farm in Bakersfield, was assigned to serve in a familiar way—as an agriculture extension agent. But after the storm, when the waters receded, a new imperative arose, and Ovitt’s service was reborn. He would spend the next six months rebuilding the typhoon’s wreckage.

Ovitt couldn’t have predicted his service would take this turn. More unforeseeable was that two years later he left Micronesia with a child. Named guardian of a boy whose parents wanted for him the education and opportunity the states might provide, Ovitt brought Juan Babauta, sixteen, back to Vermont to the family farm.

The transition had its challenges—for the Ovitts, learning the cultural differences of their newest family member, and for Babauta, assimilating as a darker-skinned member of the homogenous, rural Vermont community. But, a bond was made, and Ovitt notes, “The first time I saw my own father cry was when Juan went off to college.” College brought those dreamed-of opportunities, which Babauta parlayed to a political career as a senator and governor of the Northern Mariana Islands and now as CEO of a hospital in Saipan.

Today, Ovitt lives in Hawaii, where his career as a social worker and as an outreach advocate for disabled residents has allowed him to continue to serve the immigrant Micronesian community, who have grown significantly on the islands over the years. Four and a half decades later, he’s still applying what the Peace Corps taught him about Micronesia, its languages, and the principles of multiculturalism.

Togo, 2013

Winter Heath ‘11 finishes her bucket shower after a day of sowing seeds. When they sprout, she’ll plant the three hundred young trees with a group of ten-year-olds from her village, members of the environmental club she’s running. The trees will help counteract the deforestation that plagues her area in the north of the West African nation, one kilometer away from the border with Burkina Faso. Wood is in strong demand there, where residents live with no electricity and no running water.

Heath, who graduated from UVM with a degree in environmental studies, applied for the Peace Corps with the benefit of having already visited two service sites, the first on a UVM study-abroad trip to Belize and the other after graduation, when she worked through Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms in Guatemala. Even though she joined the Corps with eyes more open than most, dealing with day-to-day life six thousand miles from her Littleton, New Hampshire, home takes two key attributes, she says: flexibility and a sense of humor.

Learning two languages at once, both French and Moba, the more prominent of the local dialects, is better approached with a willingness to laugh at yourself, says Heath, who had a background in Spanish when she arrived in Togo in late 2012. “At first I took it very seriously,” she admits, “but I honestly think that was hindering my experience here.” Once she was able to lighten up and laugh when she accidentally called someone “grandma,” the task became easier. And the people of her village were happy to laugh along with her. “Oh, it’s just the yobo (white person) trying to speak Moba,” they say.

Flexibility is crucial to surviving the emotional ebb and flow of life in a different culture, where obstacles to your mission can crop up at any time. Heath’s host family, also transplants to the village from the more modernized capital city Lomé, help settle her at the end of the day, when the five of them dig into a shared plate of pate (pronounced paht), a traditional Togolese corn-based meal. She calls them her “mini America” because of their shared difficulty—at times more acute than her own—in adjusting to evenings of candlelight, no TV, and no nightlife.

Heath sounds almost surprised when she admits how much she misses American food, a frequent topic of conversation when she gathers with other volunteers serving in the country. “Pizza and ice cream and those neon blue slushies you can get at the movie theater,” she laughs. “You don’t think it’s something you would really miss, and then you go without it for eight months, and you think, ‘Man, I want one of those slushies.’”

For the most part, though, she says that at eight months in, she’s stopped comparing her life in Togo to her life back at home. Looking ahead, she’s staying open to the possibility of extending her service in her village or applying to serve in the Peace Corps’ Response program, which sends returned volunteers back into the field where they’re needed most. She’s honest about the struggle that comes with giving up friends and family and a familiar life for two years of service, but she’s conscious of how this has already changed her life forever. “Things get annoying, I get frustrated, but it’s a fleeting thought. It’s so exciting to realize I’m in West Africa.”

Burlington, 2013

It’s Saturday morning in March at Uncommon Grounds on Church Street, and Jed Glosenger ‘12 is thinking about the future. In three months, he’ll leave behind his computer job with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group and depart for Panama. While he can’t yet know what life will be like where he lands, today, in between swigs of the house blend, he lets his thoughts percolate, and a complex blend of hope, excitement, and trepidation emerges.

The trepidation comes only from the language hurdle. Although he’s been practicing his Spanish in advance, he knows how important immersion is to attaining true fluency, and hopes he finds ways to connect and communicate with his new neighbors quickly. But “friendliness is universal,” he says, a comforting thought that tempers the uneasiness.

He’s looking forward to the health benefits of life at a slower pace and more connection with nature. After graduating, he worked for the following summer and through harvest at a farm in Ferrisburg. He’s never felt healthier than when he was farming. “I live right now hunched over a computer the majority of the day, and it doesn’t feel like what humans are meant to do,” he says.

Glosenger, a biology major, knows he’ll be working in an agricultural capacity, but doesn’t yet know where he’ll be stationed within Panama. But he’s been prepped for the range of possibilities by Kelly Dolan, a master’s candidate in Community Development and Applied Economics and a Peace Corps recruiter based on campus. Dolan served first in Guatemala and then volunteered through Peace Corps Response in Panama, where she worked on sustainable agriculture. As a recruiter, a position which helps subsidize her master’s degree thanks to a partnership between UVM and the Peace Corps, Dolan reaches out to students and others in the surrounding community to educate those interested in serving. As a Saint Michael’s undergraduate, she was recruited through UVM’s Morrill Hall Peace Corps office herself in 2000.

Having also served in Panama, she’s been a significant resource for Glosenger, who, more than anything, is hoping to find a way to help others. Dolan’s advice? Be patient and take the time to build relationships. The first year is about “getting to know the community itself,” she explains. “Going to baptismal parties, building that confianza, or trust.”

“I understand that I’m not going to help people immediately with my Spanish skills,” Glosenger says. “It’ll be slow, but just by being easy going and friendly, eventually they’ll see I’m there to hopefully do good for both of us.”

UPDATE: Vermont Quarterly caught up with Glosenger in September on his first excursion from his new home in the remote village Cerro Cacicon to the closest Panamanian city, David. The trip, an hour-and-a-half hike followed by an hour-long bus ride, comes a little more than a month since Glosenger arrived in the mountain community of about 350 people. He’s subsisted on rice for three meals a day during that time, so enjoying some culinary variety is a priority on this trip. And, to add variety—and protein—to diets back in Cacicon, Glosenger will continue the project he’s already started there—digging ponds with a pick axe to raise fish.

Dominican Republic, 2003

It was another sunny, humid day in the DR, and Charles Kerchner was riding in the back of a pickup. Traveling with him from Nagua to Las Piezas were a group of his fellow villagers. They had just finished building a cacao fermenting box at a farmer’s house—the last one Kerchner would build as a Peace Corps volunteer. From the back of the maroon Toyota, Kerchner watched the coconut trees and cacao fields roll by and thought about his next steps. What would he do when he returned to the states? What would he miss? Wouldn’t it be great if he could make chocolate back at home?

Chocolate—and improving its post-harvest production—was a main focus of Kerchner’s time in the Corps. A driving question behind his work: “After you harvest, how do you improve the quality of the beans so that they’re worth more at market?” The answer, he says, is by properly fermenting and drying. Many chocolate farmers, Kerchner explains, were drying the beans on dirt floors, which would get muddy in the rain and mold the cacao. Building greenhouses protects the cacao from the elements and speeds the drying process, and proper fermenting boxes have a big effect on quality.

So when it was time to leave the Dominican, he dreamed of making a chocolate bar from the beans grown under the rainforest canopy where he lived. But that would mean ensuring the rainforest canopy would still be around in the years to come. His work as a master’s student at UVM, where he landed after the Peace Corps, was focused on forest conservation principles. His thesis explored ways of paying land owners to plant trees and conserve forests—providing an alternative economic incentive to grow the forest rather than cut it down.

During his thesis defense, Kerchner’s advisor, Joshua Farley, made a comment that connected Vermont, the DR, the effects of deforestation, and the need for conservation. “You know,” Farley said, “there’s a bird that flies from the northeast to the Dominican. They’ve actually caught the same bird in both places.” Immediately after the defense, Kerchner googled Bicknell’s thrush, a bird that summers on the peaks of the Green Mountains and Adirondacks and winters in the rainforest near his village in the Dominican. If its southern habitat continued to suffer deforestation, the bird would disappear from Camel’s Hump and Mount Mansfield.

As part of his UVM doctoral work, Kerchner identified a corridor of land in the Dominican Republic that might provide the greatest benefit for the thrush—“the biggest bang for your conservation buck,” he explains. And with funding from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors—in both the northeast and the DR—the land was purchased in April 2012, creating the first private reserve in the country: Reserva Privada Zorzal. While much of the reserve will remain wild, helping protect the thrush and other migratory songbirds, part of it is designated for use by local farmers to grow sustainable agroforestry crops—like high-value cacao.

Back in Vermont, Kerchner, who had dabbled in making chocolate in grad school, has gone pro. Kicked out of the home kitchen by his wife, he’s partnered with 3 Squares Cafe in Vergennes, Vermont, to make chocolate from beans grown from a cooperative of farmers in the area—including those he helped ten years ago in the Peace Corps. It’s available in dishes at 3 Squares, and the chocolate bars are sold at Henderson’s Cafe in the Davis Center, with hopes of expansion.

Visits back to the DR every other month keep Kerchner connected and involved with the farming process. He’s shaping the flavor of the bars from the very start. The result is a dark chocolate with a flavor that reminds you of its plant-based beginning—earthy, complex, and delicious. Just as satisfying: Kerchner is fulfilling his truck-ride daydream from ten years ago, his Peace Corps service still informing his life today. That enduring connection, Kerchner says, is the true goal of the Peace Corps.

This story appears in the Fall 2013 issue of Vermont Quarterly magazine. See the issue online at www.uvm.edu/vq, or request a print copy: (802) 656-2005, newserv@uvm.edu.

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Thu, 07 Nov 2013 00:00:00 -0500http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17224&category=nfsVermont took a giant step today toward becoming a global center for food systems education. The leaders of six of Vermont’s higher education institutions were at the State House to sign a groundbreaking agreement to create a premier destination for undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree students who want to learn how to advance sustainable and robust food systems. By pledging to use Vermont as a shared food systems campus, the founding members of this new consortium will offer students a rich array of cross-institutional experiences and strengthen the state’s reputation as the national educational leader in innovative food systems implementation.

Green Mountain College, Sterling College, the University of Vermont, Vermont Law School, Vermont Technical College, and the Vermont State Colleges are the founding members of the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Consortium. The Consortium will work as a team to strengthen Vermont’s place as a world-renowned center for food systems training, education, research, and outreach.

Over the next few years, Consortium members will focus on sharing courses, internships, land-based learning experiences, faculty, and annual symposia across institutions. At the same time, it will develop a coordinated marketing campaign to tell the story of the diverse and creative educational opportunities available for studying food systems in Vermont.

“Vermont’s higher education institutions have graduated generations of Vermont farmers, foresters and value-added entrepreneurs,” stated Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin. “Today they are taking an historic step of doing this work better together, with this collaboration offering students from across the country an unprecedented set of experiences in our working landscape. This will attract new youth to rural Vermont communities, spur innovation in the food and forest economies, and help all of us who are working to conserve Vermont’s working landscape in production for the long-term future.”

Chuck Ross, Vermont’s Secretary of Agriculture, believes this consortium is poised to foster the next generation of food system leaders. “Vermont already leads the country in community-based agriculture and is renowned for its focus on sustainability. This consortium ensures the momentum will only build in the years to come. I applaud these institutions for joining forces to build this important program, which I am confident will have a tremendous impact on our local, national, and global food system.”

"We look forward to collaborating with our higher education partners in the state to strengthen Vermont’s leadership role in building community-focused food systems that promote sustainability, local engagement and economic development," says Tom Sullivan, UVM president.

The Food System encompasses the cultural, economic, ecological, sociological, nutritional, and health aspects of our food, including farming, value-added production, transportation, energy usage, marketing, distribution and consumption. The Consortium members are united in their commitment to advance this work for Vermont and for communities throughout the region, the country and the world. Through its collective educational resources, the Consortium will dramatically expand the innovative growth of the leadership, skill and vision that the progress of the food system depends upon.

The Consortium grew out of the Vermont Higher Education Food Systems Council which was founded and facilitated by the Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD).

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Mon, 14 Oct 2013 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=17022&category=nfsHubert “Hub” Vogelmann, a botanist and conservation leader whose pioneering research on Camel’s Hump focused the nation’s attention on the threat of acid rain, died on October 11th. He was 84.

“Vermont is the green place it is because of Hub,” said Jeffrey Hughes, who now directs the UVM Field Naturalist Program that Vogelmann founded. “He was the one who really established Vermont’s environmental ethos.”

Working with students in the early 1960s, Vogelmann documented the status of trees, particularly red spruce, on the slopes of Vermont’s iconic mountain, and began to take an overall measure of the health of Vermont’s high-elevation forests.

When he returned in the late-1970’s, he was able to show a shocking decline in the well-being of trees — including a loss of half of the spruce — and trace this problem back to pollution from cars and Midwestern coal-fired power-plants.

His 1982 article in Natural History, “Catastrophe on Camel’s Hump,” led to strong reactions by leaders in Washington and scientists across the nation. “It was a bombshell,” Vogelmann recalled in a 1991 Burlington Free Press article.

Soon, a string of politicians and journalists were trooping up the side of the mountain with Vogelmann to see his work first-hand. By 1988, President George H.W. Bush had made addressing acid rain a national policy priority. Vogelmann’s dramatic research, which followed other scientific reports from the Adirondacks and New Hampshire, set the stage for revisions to the Clean Air Act that improved the problems of acid rain.

Marsh, Carson, Vogelmann

Thomas Siccama was one of Vogelmann’s doctoral students in the 1960s and worked with him to gather the original Camel’s Hump tree data. “Rachel Carson did her thing in 1962 and the world became aware of the environment as a whole,” Siccama recalls. “Before that you had to study a particular fungus or plant or tree. It wasn’t really considered pure science to study whole systems.” But Vogelmann was one of Carson’s heirs, Siccama said.

“Hub understood that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” said Siccama, professor emeritus of forest ecology at Yale, who completed his undergraduate and PhD degrees at UVM. “We capitalized on that new approach in our Green Mountain study.”

For Jeffrey Hughes, Vogelmann stands in a rarified lineage with Vermont’s nineteenth-century philosopher of nature, George Perkins Marsh, considered by many to be the nation’s first environmentalist. “Marsh’s philosophical treatise, Man and Nature, was a big deal,” Hughes said, “but Hub’s contribution was as big — and it was through action.”

Up from the pond

Vogelmann graduated from Heidelberg College in 1950, then received his doctorate in botany from the University of Michigan in 1955. That same year, he moved to Vermont with his wife Marie, to begin a 36-year tenure as a professor at the University of Vermont, including 16 years as chair of the Botany Department (now Plant Biology).

Not long after Vogelmann arrived, he discovered Shelburne Pond, an undeveloped stretch of water surrounded by limestone cliffs and marshes, where he spent many hours fishing. “It was wholly undeveloped,” he told me on trip there in 2007, “and also wholly unprotected.” So he went into action to try to protect it.

Soon, the then-chairman of his department, James Marvin, asked Vogelmann to help start the first branch of The Nature Conservancy in Vermont; he volunteered and became one of the chapter’s co-founders, including time as chairman. By traveling to many Rotary Club meetings, and other gatherings across the state, Vogelmann slowly sparked interest in a post-Carson land protection movement for Vermont — and his specific effort to conserve the pond.

This was a favorite spot among his decades of explorations looking for rare plants and beautiful habitats across Vermont (as well as in the Amazon Basin, Mexican rain forests, and Arctic tundra) — that he combined with a gentle but unrelenting effort to conserve them.

In 1973, Vogelmann led the acquisition of the first piece of land at Shelburne Pond; today it’s a conservation area of more than 1,000 acres. And in the years before and after, he helped The Nature Conservancy, the State of Vermont, and many other groups to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of important natural areas across the state.

Science with purpose

“He’s a constant reminder of what ecological science is for — it’s not just for the dirt and plants and bugs and animals — it’s for people and you have to factor them in,” Jeffrey Hughes said. “Hub’s message was always: you can know everything on earth but if you can’t get other people to hear what you’re saying, it doesn’t matter.”

Before protections arrived for Shelburne Pond or Molly Bog or other treasured spots, Vogelmann had been instrumental in protecting what he called “Vermont’s rooftops”: the Green Mountains. In 1958, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed a missile communication facility on the summit of Mount Mansfield. There were separate plans to blast a tunnel through Smuggler’s Notch. The failed 1930’s vision of a high-elevation highway through the Greens was being reconsidered. There was discussion of paving the Long Trail.

Vogelmann was a key figure in building up awareness of the ecological value and fragility of these alpine places. Whether speaking to garden clubs, fellow scientists, or “making coloring books for kids — to color the mountains green for Vermont’s Green Mountains,” Hughes said, “he led the crusade; he was a fellow with a passion.”

His crusading included a leading role in the creation, in 1970, of Act 250, Vermont’s nationally important land-use law. He worked with numerous people across the political spectrum to stop aerial spraying of herbicides over Vermont’s forests. And he served on many environmental boards including the Governor's Advisory Board under Governor Howard Dean.

“Hub’s real power was building teams and his real wisdom was in the choosing of people and building good teams,” said David Barrington, now the chair of UVM’s Plant Biology Department. “I think that’s why the acid rain research worked well, and why he got so much else done” — outside of academic life.

He poured a lot of this charisma into the formation of UVM’s famed Field Naturalist Program. “He was so humble,” recalls one of the program’s graduates, Ana Ruesink, who went on to lead the science program for the Vermont chapter of the Nature Conservancy in the early 2000s. “He would take us, with delight, out for hikes on Camel’s Hump, and I bet he had a lot of other things to do.”

Vogelmann formed the FN program in 1983 and secured funding from the Mellon Foundation in response to the increasing specialization of science he observed. Himself a skilled plant taxonomist, Vogelmann understood the value of expert knowledge. But he worried about the loss of big-picture and politically savvy scientists.

“Where are the next John Muirs, the next Charles Darwins, going to come from?” was his concern, said Jeffrey Hughes. So “he created a graduate program to train the world’s future Darwins, Muirs, Browers and Vogelmanns,” wrote the program’s writing instructor, Bryan Pfeiffer, in a recent blog post eulogizing Vogelmann. “He leaves an inheritance of conservation and a devotion to the discovery of nature and what it means to be alive outdoors.”

A memorial service for Hub Vogelmann will be held on Saturday, Oct. 19, at 1 p.m. in the Ira Allen Chapel on the University of Vermont.

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Tue, 24 Sep 2013 00:00:00 -0400http://www.uvm.edu/nfs/?Page=news&storyID=16852&category=nfsAt dusk on Homecoming Saturday, Ethan and Erin Nelson walked hand in hand with their two young daughters skipping alongside and their son in his arms. They strolled through the University of Vermont cattle barns on Spear Street. They saw a day-old Holstein in the maternity barn. Their daughters Brynn and Susanna got down eye-to- eye and talked to a trio of Jersey calves in huts nearby. Then they stopped to watch Sam Cox and Rachel “Rocky” Freund do the evening chores and milk the student-run CREAM herd. (That stands for the Cooperative for Real Education in Agricultural Management program.)

"We met in these barns," says Ethan ’98, referring to the turn of the century when they were animal science majors. "Well practically," corrects Erin '99. Like Cox and Freund and hundreds before them, they were both “CREAMers.” Now he runs the family farm. She's a vet, they're married with three kids, and they came home to the UVM Farms for CREAM's 25th birthday barbecue.

They weren’t the only couple who originated at UVM during the October 4-5, 2013 Homecoming and Family weekend, of course. Plenty of pairs tell a similar sweet success story of launching careers and marriage after earning their College degrees. Among the others that join the thousands on campus for Homecoming weekend are families visiting their children who are students.

Homecoming and Family Weekend is a University wide event for folks of every green and gold stripe, yet each College and School puts its special welcome spin on it. UVM’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) especially brings people outdoors in touch with well bred horses, milk cows, whimsical goats, student-grown vegetables, cold-hardy grapes, heirloom and new varieties of apples, cider and mums.

Homegrown Treats

For example, horse lovers converged at the Ellen Hardacre Equine Center on Saturday to see riding competitions, races, dressage, demonstrations of riding talent and well cared for horses. UVM is unusual in that students may actually bring their horses with them to College. The Equine Center has 22 stalls, tack room and other facilities.

Visiting Alice Conray and her horse Greta were Alice’s grandmother and mom Bea and Kate Day of West Newbury and Newburyport, Massachusetts, respectively. And while many parents bring cookies and treats to their college students, the Days brought thick, long homegrown carrots for Greta. Alice and Greta will graduate in May 2014.

Alumni who wanted an update and parents of first-year students who had questions attended UVM CALS Dean Tom Vogelmann’s open house on Saturday. Over coffee they saw architects’ renderings of new plans to renovate UVM Farms.

Unadvertised Special

Folks who took the bus to the UVM Horticulture Farm not only learned about cold-hardy grapes and new apple varieties from Hort. Farm Director Terry Bradshaw. It just so happened that Professor Josef Gorres, who has been called a “wormologist” was at the farm doing earthworm research and agreed to chat about his discoveries of an earthworm invasion of non-native species. He even dug up a crazy snakeworm to the, um, delight of tour goers.

Another weekend highlight was the 25th anniversary of CREAM – a hands-on, year-long farm management program in the University of Vermont's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Students perform all of the barn chores and manage the whole operation of about 30 Holstein cows plus heifers housed at the UVM Farms on campus. It's one of Vermont's highest producing and genetically superior herds. About 15 students participate each year and gain eight college credits. The CREAM program has graduated perhaps 375 farm managers in its history, and they've succeeded in a wide range of fields.

Birthday Surprise

Saturday evening more than 100 alumni of signature student-run dairy farm program turned out for a barbecue in the Equine Center show arena that had been transformed with lights, candles, decorations, plenty of food and company. CREAM Director Norm Purdie was master of ceremonies. A founder and 18-year Director James “Gilly” Gilman recalled the history and how the organization has changed. UVM CALS Development Officer Howard Lincoln noted that significant funds had already been raised so that UVM will break ground on a new CREAM barn this year, and he urged alumni to make a commitment. Laurence “LCJ” Jost, '80, rose from his table to do just that. He came forward with a check for $2,500.

And while crowd celebrated CREAM’s birthday and the birth of a new CREAM barn, four barns away, a CREAM herd Holstein gave birth to a calf. And since Emily Stephens, a UVM CALS junior in animal science from Nashua, New Hampshire is charged to care for this calf, she earned the honor of naming him: Barnaby – an auspicious sign of that new barn to come.